I finally stopped fighting customers on engine brake installs

About 8 months ago a fleet manager told me point blank that my custom program on a 3126 was costing them fuel money. He said I was tuning for power when they needed economy for their delivery route. I argued at first because I thought I knew better. But after tracking one of their trucks for 3 weeks I saw he was right. It was idling 40 minutes a day longer than it needed to. Now I always ask what the truck actually does all day before I touch the ECM. Has anyone else had a customer call them out on something and it turned out to be solid advice?

2 comments

2 Comments

elizabethwhite1mo agoMost Upvoted

Hang on though. You let a fleet manager talk you out of better engine tuning? That 3126 program probably had better throttle response and would have helped them merge into traffic faster. Those delivery trucks need to get up to speed, not crawl along. Idling 40 minutes longer is a training issue for their drivers, not a tuning problem. Customer input is valuable but they don't know what they don't know about the actual mechanical limits.

sanchez.blake1mo ago

Whoa wait, 40 minutes more idling just from the tuning change? That's a huge difference, I can't believe the fleet manager was okay with that kind of fuel waste over the long haul. I get that drivers need to be comfortable, but that seems like a massive operational cost to swallow for a minor comfort tweak.